Category: People Profiles Archives

January 2018 Written by Tom Pardoe, MFH Goshen Hounds A real icon of the foxhunting world in Maryland for approximately a half century has left us for the greener pastures of the great beyond. Having hunted with each of Goshen Hounds’ huntsmen over that period as well as being an active participant in recent times with the New Market-Middletown Valley Hounds, Rick Jones was always recognized as the dapper, well-turned out gentleman who quietly set the standard for dress, appearance, and manners in the hunt field. In addition to that standard, Rick was an exceptional horseman as well. For many years, Rick led the field at Goshen on a one-eyed horse that would flawlessly negotiate the standard coops in the country, with Rick simply turning him slightly so that the “good eye” had a clear view of the obstacle as he approached. After the early years of doing everything asked of him in the hunt, from whipping-in to helping at the kennels, in addition to racing over fences, Rick was appointed joint Master with Stanley Stabler and Brian Pickett in 1990. Rick served in that capacity until 2003, serving as the mentor for a variety of joint Masters, but always doing so with a joyous spirit intent on showing sport to the field and providing for a pleasurable day for all. It was during this time that Rick established...

August 2018 Lifelong foxhunter Gary Wenzel of Poplar Springs died on July 7. He was 67. Gary was an old-school local horseman who discovered foxhunting through the legendary stables of the Aitcheson family (on the aptly named Riding Stable Road) and their Iron Bridge Hounds. Wenzel was Laurel High School graduate who went on to earn a degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and from there held a career in Beltsville at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal Research Center. Wenzel retired in 2005. Wenzel was a freshman at UMD when he met his best friend and eventual wife Karen Kandra (Equiery photographer), who was also a freshman at the college. They met in the hunt field on a junior day in 1969 while he was an Iron Bridge member and she was a Goshen Hounds member. The couple purchased a farm together in Poplar Springs in the late 80s, and once it was all set up and organized, the two friends were married in 1989. And as true foxhunters do, they scheduled their wedding around the fixture card. Wenzel organized his entire life around his first true passion, foxhunting. He carefully calibrated his work schedule so that he could take one day off each week during the hunting season. Wenzel had his own small private pack for a while. Back in the 1970s, he assembled...

December 2017 …Jack W. Stedding, Sr., one of Maryland and the United States’ top hunter professionals from the 1960s until the mid-2000s, who passed away on October 23, 2017, at age 75. He is survived by longtime companion, Linda Andrisani, also son Jack W. Stedding, Jr., and Jack’s wife Josee. Born on March 31, 1942, Jack learned to ride at his uncle’s hack stable near Baltimore, “by getting dumped and bucked off.” He began showing at age 7 and by his mid-teens, decided that horses were what he wanted to do for a living. His first professional stable was based at Ruth Yeager’s Mayfair Farm in Timonium. Stedding campaigned Yeager’s young Thoroughbred horses throughout the MidAtlantic and in Florida, establishing a reputation for himself as one of the country’s most up and coming trainers on the hunter circuit. With then wife Bobbie (Gardner), and Andrisani, both hunter/jumper trainers, Jabolin Farm was established in the late 1960s. In 1980, Stedding and Andrisani founded Monkton Manor Farm, where for over 25 years, they continued to cultivate young riders and horses into some of the nation’s most successful partnerships. Top professionals such as Tommy Serio, Sandy Ferrell, Albert Urbina, R. Scot Evans, Nancy Ashway, Streett Moore, Elizabeth Solter, Jennifer Marshall and Mary Lisa Nicholson are all products of Stedding’s training and guidance, and continue to pass his wisdom and work ethic onto...

December 2017 …Frankie Pardoe, Artist Everyone knows that Frankie Pardoe, who passed away on November 4 at the age of 79, was a talented painter of wildlife, hounds, horses, fox and house pets. Who in our world does not have at least one “Frankie” adorning their walls? Oil, acrylic, graphite. Original, lithograph or giclee. In my household, we have at least four originals and well over a dozen prints. Our own private Frankie gallery. Yes, everyone knows that Frankie was a talented artist – but her greatest artistic talent could not be seen. It wasn’t renderings of animals or the portraits of friends or family. And it wasn’t captured on canvas or paper. Frankie’s greatest artistic talent was the art of listening. Yes, Frankie could draw. But Frankie also had the gift of being able to draw us out – without us realizing that she had done so! Drop by for tea! The kettle was hot. She was just waiting for you to come by. Sit down at the table. Tea or cocoa? What have you been up to? How is so and so? She wanted to hear all about it. Although we were clearly in her orbit, somehow she made each of us feel as if she were in our orbit. Lady Frankie The small, historic chapel, so much a part of our community, was overflowing. Shoehorned into...

October 2017 Anne Moe: Equiery’s “It Girl” by Crystal Brumme Pickett On September 3, The Equiery lost a member of our family when staffer Anne Moe passed away after a brief battle with late-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (commonly known as ALS or “Lou Gehrig’s disease”). Where to begin with Anne? Not with the usual, formulaic obit. She was our Annie. I have known Anne for 25 years. She was one of the first women to embrace me in the world of foxchasing – and she had the “certain something” that all the young women in the club wanted to emulate – and single men wanted to date! A physical combination of Mary Martin and Sandy Duncan, with a Mary Tyler Moore smile that lit up the world – who wouldn’t want to be Anne or be with Anne? Anne made everything fun, and made everyone seem wonderful and feel wonderful. The embodiment of je ne sais quoi, wearing a Norwegian sweater with mittens, drinking a Stroh’s Light instead of champagne! Our world has dimmed a little bit. Born September 25, 1938 to Harry and Esther Larson of Scarville, Iowa, Anne Marguerite Moe (née Larson) began a lifetime love affair with horses on the family farm with the workhorses, riding aboard the drafts as they returned home from the field. She taught a blind pony to jump – and then,...

October 2017 …Jane Nicolet Toal, who passed away on August 14, at 96. In May 2011, The Equiery and the Maryland Jockey Club honored a unique sorority of Maryland horsewomen who broke through gender barriers, whether in the horse world or the “real world,” as “Lady Legends.” The following is condensed from the full version, which can be found on our archives on equiery.com. For a woman born in 1921, a 30-year career as a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health was highly unusual – but Jane was unusual, growing up surrounded by male and female doctors, scientists, and athletes. Jane’s father, Benjamin H. Nicolet, received his PhD from Yale at age 21, served on the faculty for the Chemistry Department at the University of Chicago, ultimately settling in Maryland working for the United Stated Department of Agriculture’s Dairy Research Facility in Beltsville. Jane was an active Girl Scout, earning her Golden Eaglet in 1938, the last year it was offered and the highest award a Girl Scout could earn. According to Jane, the award, which was modeled after the Boy Scouts’ award, was discontinued precisely because it was too much like the boy’s program (with a high level of camping and outdoor skill requirements) and organizers thought that the girls’ program should not be quite as rugged. Two friends of her parents, Wilton and Emogene Earl,...